Louisville basketball's turnaround under Pat Kelsey provides blueprint ACC can build on
When discussions began about bringing Miami into the ACC in the early 2000s, legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski expressed prophetic concern.
“The thing that made our league is basketball,” Krzyzewski told ESPN at the time.
“... Miami is the domino to everything. When you're in a league and you make a huge decision like that, then you have to be cognizant of the impact of the other aspects. … Is the football championship (with 12 teams) that important that it dilutes something else that you have?"
Two decades later, the ACC has ballooned into an 18-member league encompassing three time zones and both coasts of the continental United States. Louisville joined in 2014, bringing a basketball lineage worthy of its new blue-blooded brethren and a strong Charlie Strong-led football program. U of L was one of six ACC teams to make the NCAA Tournament that year.
Only four made it in 2025 — Louisville among them for the first time since 2019, and Duke the lone survivor after Week 1 (a first for the league since NCAA rules allowed multiple bids per conference 50 years ago). Prior to Selection Sunday, the ACC never had fewer than one-third of its members make the field since it expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Meanwhile, the SEC and Big Ten earned double-digit bids.
"In the last three years, we've had four different schools make it to the Final Four," ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips told The Courier Journal. "We're just held to the highest standard, and that's what we want."
The ACC’s emphasis on football has diluted its basketball product. Departures of Hall of Fame coaches including Krzyzewski, the simultaneous growth of its competitors and lawsuits from some of the league’s more affluent brands seeking greener (as in money) pastures haven't helped. But Louisville’s quick turnaround under Pat Kelsey provides a shining example to the rest of the conference as to what can happen when a school hires the right person and gives them resources to succeed.
“It's a pretty simple equation,” U of L athletics director Josh Heird told The Courier Journal. “... I know we have a room full of ADs (in the ACC) that are committed to that.”
Conference realignment and investment
The ACC has consistently set revenue records over the last several years. Even with lawsuits looming from Clemson and Florida State over the league’s grant of rights agreement, the ACC reported total revenue of $706.6 million during the 2022-23 fiscal year — about $90 million more than 2021-22.
But this progress is overshadowed by the SEC and Big Ten’s growth. The SEC reported $852.6 million in revenue during 2022-23 behind the Big Ten’s $879.9 million.
Much of that revenue comes from football-driven TV and radio deals, which trickles down from league offices to member schools. The SEC reported $544.4 million from its in 2022-23. As such, seismic conference realignment decisions have been dictated by football viewership numbers — not men's basketball.
The ACC’s makeup is no longer true to its name, as the league expanded westward in 2024 with the addition of Stanford, Cal and SMU after the SEC added Texas and Oklahoma, and the Big Ten added UCLA, Southern Cal, Oregon and Washington.
Louisville entered the ACC in 2014 with three national championships in men's basketball (1980, 1986 and 2013) and nine Final Four appearances. Cal has won one championship and been to three Final Fours, but none since John F. Kennedy was elected president. Stanford won it all in 1942, last reaching the Final Four in 1998. SMU's lone national semifinal appearance came in 1956.
For a conference looking to bolster its football résumé, adding two schools known for their Olympic sport prowess and a program once put to death by the NCAA seemed like an odd choice. But Stanford and Cal were the best major conference schools left after the Pac-12’s implosion. And SMU, which made a surprise run to the College Football Playoff, put the league in one of the nation’s largest TV markets.
As far as individual schools go, Virginia reported the highest total revenue figure in the ACC last year with $161.92 million, according to USA TODAY's database. That figure ranked No. 14 in the country with five Big Ten and seven current SEC schools ahead of it. Louisville ranked No. 23 overall and fourth in the ACC (behind UVA, FSU and Clemson) with $146.23 million.
In 2019, Forbes reported that Louisville was the most valuable college basketball program in the nation, as determined by three-year average revenue ($52 million) and profit ($30.4 million). Other ACC teams that made the top 20 included Duke (No. 4), Syracuse (No. 7), UNC (No. 11) and N.C. State (No. 17).
U of L basketball’s average reported revenue from FY2022-24 was $36.1 million — down $15.9 million from Forbes' report. Its average profit was $15 million — down $15.4 million. Louisville on-court struggles impacted its financial situation, as the failed head coaching tenures of Chris Mack and Kenny Payne facilitated expensive leadership transitions.
It’s too early to tell how Kelsey's success has impacted the program’s bottom line. But he clearly mobilized fans to attend more home games (which will be reflected in ticket sale revenue) and give to the school’s official NIL collective, 502Circle.
His hiring was the impetus for record-setting engagement. 502Circle reported it received the most new enrollees on a single day March 28 — Kelsey’s first on the job. Less than a week later, local businessmen Rick and David Kueber of Glow Brands announced a $1 million matching donation to 502Circle “earmarked for men’s basketball.”
Over the summer, Kelsey constructed one of the most experienced rosters in college basketball (No. 5 in KenPom’s ranking). Kelsey is using this momentum — and backing from 502Circle — to recruit for next season’s squad. Mikel Brown Jr., a five-star point guard and McDonald’s All-American, secured a seven-figure NIL deal by committing to the Cards. On3 reported Louisville is preparing to spend $8 million to $10 million in the transfer portal this offseason.
Kelsey’s willingness to embrace NIL offers a stark contrast to the rest of the conference. According to Opendorse, the top-10 NIL earners in ACC men’s basketball made less than their Big East, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC counterparts last January. Former Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim told ESPN that was a reflection of the league’s “slow acknowledgment” of how powerful NIL could be and how fast the college sports landscape would change.
Coaching turnover and the next generation
Kelsey wasn’t the splashiest hire. But he had a proven record of building programs, which is exactly what Louisville needed after back-to-back single-digit-win seasons under Payne.
Kelsey coached nine seasons at Winthrop, becoming the fifth all-time winningest coach in Big South Conference history. He led the College of Charleston to back-to-back CAA titles and an NCAA Tournament berth in 2024. At Louisville, Kelsey orchestrated one of the largest single-season turnarounds in Division I history and brought the Cards back to March Madness for the first time since 2019.
Only Duke, North Carolina and Clemson joined them.
“The facts are the facts, and we have to address it,” Phillips said. “Four teams in (the NCAA Tournament) from the ACC is not acceptable.”
The solution? Investment. Pour money into facility upgrades and revenue-sharing efforts; promote the league’s historic basketball brands; strategically schedule games that help appeal to the selection committee’s metrics; and hire the right replacements for the league’s dearly departed Hall of Famers.
Since 2021, Boeheim (Syracuse), Roy Williams (UNC), Mike Brey (Notre Dame), Tony Bennett (Virginia), Jim Larrañaga (Miami), Leonard Hamilton (FSU) and Krzyzewski — responsible for 30 Final Four appearances and 10 NCAA titles — have left the ACC.
Four schools made new hires this offseason: N.C. State (McNeese’s Will Wade) Virginia (former VCU and UMBC coach Ryan Odom), Miami (former Duke assistant Jai Lucas) and FSU (former FSU player-slash-NBA assistant Luke Loucks).
In Heird’s words, “Pat’s not the rookie anymore.”
“The success that he's had and just the type of vocal leader that he is, I absolutely think, and expect, that he'll take a leadership role when it comes to the coaches in this league,” Heird said.
For having turned the ACC’s 2023-24 last-place team into a 2-seed in the conference tournament, Kelsey was named league Coach of the Year. He joined an exclusive list of men’s coaches to win such an award in three different conferences — among them Denny Crum (Missouri Valley Conference, Metro, Conference USA) and Rick Pitino (SEC, C-USA, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference and Big East).
Perhaps most encouragingly to ACC leadership is how Kelsey has also provided the league’s newcomers with a blueprint.
“It raises the level of expectations of other schools that are going through a similar transition, whether it's replacing a legendary coach, or, in the way of Louisville, where the previous coaches just didn't work out,” Phillips said. “So that becomes a point of reference.”
Up until the last decade or so, the SEC — in the words of one longtime Big Ten writer — was viewed as “third-world basketball.” In March 2014, former Commissioner Mike Slive held a meeting ahead of the conference tournament lamenting the league's national basketball standing. But Selection Sunday in 2016 is what current Commissioner Greg Sankey points to as the conference's watershed moment.
A movement began to improve the on-court product by investing in coaches and facilities. The SEC’s collective expenses for men’s basketball increased by $78.8 million (87.8%) from fiscal year 2012-13 to 2022-23. Four current SEC coaches have won national Coach of the Year awards: Bruce Pearl (Auburn), John Calipari (Kentucky), Rick Barnes (Tennessee) and Chris Beard (Ole Miss).
Nine years later, the SEC had a record 14 teams make the 2025 NCAA Tournament, breaking the previous record held by the Big East (11). The SEC also crushed the ACC 14-2 in the annual scheduling series. (The ACC lost 11 of those games by double digits.) The SEC’s dominance has led many to call it one of the best conferences in the history of college basketball.
How long might it take for the ACC to reclaim that crown?
If what Kelsey has accomplished at Louisville is any indication, not long.
Reach college sports enterprise reporter Payton Titus at ptitus@gannett.com, and follow her on X @petitus25.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: March Madness 2025: Louisville basketball, Pat Kelsey can help ACC
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